Best Practices for Construction in Sensitive Areas

Ensuring compliance is one of the largest responsibilities you will have when working as an Environmental Monitor in a sensitive area during the construction stage.

I know what you’re thinking – compliant to what? Well, compliant to a variety of factors really. Compliance needs to be ensured in terms of regulatory and the owner’s requirements, as well as the engineering and design restraints involved in the project.

It is your job an Environmental Monitor to stay involved with the planning and practices outlaid during the project’s construction stage. It is important to have open communication with the construction team in order to be aware of their plans, objectives and their role in the process.

Another large aspect to be aware of is the project’s changing environmental conditions. It’s a good idea to always be aware of current and forecasted weather patterns – a small change in the weather may have the potential to significantly impact your project site. In these situations, it is always beneficial to have a contingency plan in case a problem does arise. A well, take reoccurring looks at the site area for changes – you need to know if there has been construction performed, such as large areas of soil exposed or excavations done by the construction team.

Another responsibility of an Environmental Monitor working on a project in a sensitive are is to check the equipment involved in the construction. Frequent equipment checks this will help to ensure prevention of leakage or spills.

Due to the fact that site isolation is a water management process, you can’t always manage all of the water in the site. In several cases, there will be the potential for dirty water. If this happens, determine where you will discharge dirty water before you start work, even if there hasn’t been any generated yet – have a plan!

Take photos and document everything! It is important to keep track of decisions that are made and processes that are enacted. This is to ensure you can support and back the decisions that are made and the processes that are carried out on-site.